The Jordan Harbinger Show - 680: Recycling | Skeptical Sunday

Episode Date: June 5, 2022

Between climate change, global pollution, and a spiraling amount of waste created every single day, we all want to find ways -- even small ways -- to help. And for some people, the easiest way is to recycle. You have a house, plenty of room to separate your garbage, and your city provides different color bins so you don’t get confused between pizza and the box it comes in. And everything works out, right? Well, of course not! Here, we'll weigh the pros and cons of recycling and make sure you're not doing it all wrong. Welcome to Skeptical Sunday, a special edition of The Jordan Harbinger Show where Jordan and fact-checker, comedian, and podcast host David C. Smalley break down a topic that you may have never thought about, open things up, and debunk common misconceptions. Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/680 On This Week's Skeptical Sunday, We Discuss: Does recycling really help save the planet? Only if you do it the right way (which we'll discuss). What would be the unintended consequences of banning plastics entirely? Why some materials that could be recycled aren't. What are the massive benefits of recycling metals? How many resources are saved when we recycle paper? Connect with Jordan on Twitter, on Instagram, and on YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on Skeptical Sunday, drop Jordan a line at [e-mail] and let him know! Connect with David at his website, on Twitter, on Instagram, on TikTok, and on YouTube, and make sure to check out The David C. Smalley Podcast here or wherever you enjoy listening to fine podcasts! If you like to get out of your house and catch live comedy, keep an eye on David's tour dates here and text David directly at [phone] for tickets when he comes to your town! See Jordan (with Ryan Holiday) Live in L.A. June 13th!: Go to jordanharbinger.com/tickets for more info Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is sponsored in part by Conspiruality Podcast. You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation? Well, there's a podcast that's all about dismantling new age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy mad yogis, basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspiruality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future to how former leftists get pulled into far-right conspiracies.

An interesting episode to check out is called Speaking Truth to Goop, where Jen Gunter breaks down the pseudoscience behind the wellness industry in a way that is super entertaining and eye-opening. It's sharp, funny, and makes you a lot harder to fool, which, if you listen to this show, you know I'm all about that. From exploring cults to analyzing our cultural and political landscape, the Conspiruality podcast will help you stay informed against misinformation and resist fear tactics. Find Conspiruality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. And this is Skeptical Sunday, a special edition of the Jordan Harbinger show where fact checker and comedian David C. Smalley and I break down a topic that you may never have thought about. We open things up and debunk common misconceptions. Topics such as why the Olympics are kind of a sham. Why expiration dates are nonsense. Why tipping makes no sense. Chemtrails and a whole lot more. Normally on the Jordan Harbinger show we decode the stories, secrets and skills are the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. We have long-form interviews and conversations with a variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, athletes to authors,

thinkers to performers. If you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about it, our starter packs are where you do it. These are collections of our favorite episodes organized by topic that'll help new listeners get a taste of everything that we do here on the show. Topics like persuasion, influence, disinformation, cyber warfare, negotiation and communication, China and North Korea, crime and cults, and more. Just visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash start or take a look in your Spotify app to get started. Special announcement, by the way, I'm going to be doing a live show, like live in person, in real life. I'm going to be interviewing Ryan Holiday, author Ryan Holiday.

That's going to be in Los Angeles at the Venice West on June 13th. So tickets are available. I'd love to meet you in person. Tickets are available at Jordan Harbinger.com slash tickets. Again, Jordan Harbinger.com slash tickets. June 13th at the Venice West in Los Angeles, I'll be interviewing Ryan Holiday, and I hope to see you there. Today on Skeptical Sunday, recycling. Between climate change, global pollution, and a spiraling amount of waste created every single day,

we all want to find ways to help, even in small ways. And for some people, the easiest way is to recycle. You have a house, plenty of room to separate your garbage. Your city provides different colored bins so you don't get confused between pizza and the box that it comes in, and everything works out, right? Well, obviously not. This is Skeptical Sundays. I'm joined by comedian David C. Smalley,

and I'm pretty darn sure he's going to ruin all of that for us. That's what I'm here for, Jordan. Your intro really showed off your big house owning different color bin having privilege. Yeah, it's a nice flex right there. Yeah, yeah, nice job. For others, recycling is a huge pain in the ass. You have a tiny apartment. One trash can.

The recycled products have to be carried to a dark alley where murderers lie in wait to chase you because they know that when you run in flip-flops, it feels like one of those nightmares where you can't get away. Also, raccoons freak me out. They have literal hands. Sorry, this isn't about me. The point is recycling worth it. And are you even doing it correctly? So, look, whether you're listening and you're the perfect recycler who thinks you're doing everything right, or you never recycle and you hope this episode is somehow going to justify your laziness, just strap in because I got a little something for everyone in this one. Okay, so let's start with the basics. We all know recycling. Recycling is good for the planet. Reduce,

reuse, recycle. Well, one small qualifier. Recycling properly greatly benefits the planet. If we do it right, it reduces waste of landfills. It conserves energy. It creates jobs. It prevents pollution. And it conserves other natural resources like trees and water. So yeah, if we do it right, sure. I know it also helps in preserving land because we have to like mine fewer raw materials if we use recycled products, right? We don't have to dig it out of the ground. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's probably one of the biggest benefits, reducing the destruction of previously untouched nature, because we're just using things that were already made by destroying other lands. So that's sort of summed up in the natural resources piece of it, but I do think it's important to point out that distinction. The issue is our plastic problem is massive. In 2019,

a dead whale wash to shore, and it was found to have 88 pounds of plastic in its stomach. And there are some environmental reports that say if we keep going like we're going today, that by 2050, which sounds kind of far away, but it's only 28 years away, that will be more plastic than fish in the ocean. And that's terrifying. It's gross also, but I always, this is the nerd in me, I suppose. I always wonder, they're just talking about by volume, right? Because if you're talking about pieces, you can always break down plastic into smaller and smaller pieces. So that's kind of an unfair thing to say, like, there's a trillion pieces of plastic in the ocean.

They got to mean by weight, which is probably so. But it's also probably the biggest factor of this is the overfishing of the oceans, which they're not talking about here because this is not about ruining the oceans. This is about ruining recycling. Got it. Okay. Okay. So it seems like we should move away from using plastics altogether at some point in the future. Probably not by 2050. I mean, look, if we develop something better, then sure. But I think plastics have been unfairly demonized over the years.

And this is where some activists are going to get a little. frustrated with me, but just stick with me because I've got some data to back this up. So a lot of people who rail against plastic, they never address how much plastic actually helps our environment. Kim Raghart is an engineer. She's an environmentalist. She's an expert on recycling plastics. She's even the professor of circular plastics at My Strict University in the Netherlands. She has this TED Talk available online, and I want to encourage everyone to go watch it. She says in there that plastic extends the life of a stake for 26 days. It extends a life of a cucumber for 11 days, just as a couple of examples.

So plastics do a massive job in reducing food waste, and that plastic is almost always better for the environment as far as transport. So using bottled water as an example, okay, it takes 24 times the amount of glass that it would take plastic to make a single water bottle. Oh, because of the thickness of a plastic bottle. Yeah, okay, that makes sense. Exactly. And then she talks about how much heavier the glass is, which means it's almost

twice the cost to transport it. So think of the fossil fuels needed to burn in order to carry that much weight as opposed to plastic for the same amount of water. Okay, fine, but people are thinking glass gets reused all the time. I guess some plastic does, but it's not really the same. She does address that. She says that a glass bottle can be used about eight times before it needs to be melted down and formed into a new bottle. And between each use, it has to be cleaned, right, with a lot of harsh chemicals. So you've got a ton of water. I would hope so. The harsh chemicals, yeah, you want it, but it's really bad for the environment to use those harsh chemicals, not to mention the production of those chemicals that need to be used in the cleaning of the glass bottles.

And then once the glass needs to be melted down, it takes a load of energy to do so, because the melting point for glass is 1,500 degrees Celsius or about 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit. Oh, wow. So that's a lot of energy needed and a massive amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere. Plastic melts at just 300 degrees Celsius or 572 Fahrenheit. So with all this combined, even counting for the reuse of glass bottles, and if we only recycled half of our plastic bottles, we still need to use six times as much glass as we do, plastic.

So as Professor Raygard says, when we consider all the elements, glass is not the green champion we would like it to be. It's how we in turn fail to recycle plastics that actually creates the problem. Okay, so it's not just bottles. What about, see, I'm going to move the goalpost now that you prove me wrong. It's not just bottles. What about the dreaded plastic bags? I actually drove by a landfill.

I think it was in Hawaii a couple months ago, several months ago. The whole area around the landfill just had every bush that was covered in plastic bags that had blown out of there. They're gross, right? They're everywhere. If there's that much in the landfill, I don't even want to think about what's in the ocean. Even though it's not technically a single-use product, I just don't know anybody who takes old plastic bags back to the grocery store if you even can do that.

I mean, at best they're going to use it as a small trash bag for like the bathroom garbage. They've got to be as bad or worse for the environment as we've been told, right? Well, again, she talks about this in her talk, and it's important to step back and think about an overall carbon footprint. Okay. Or an overall footprint of the product being manufactured, cleaned, and so forth. So she compares plastic bags to paper. That's the big question, right? Paper or plastic.

Right. She goes on to pretend, even if we recycle 100% of it. of paper bags, which we know that we don't actually recycle all of them. But let's pretend that we do, and none of the plastic is, because the plastic bags are not recyclable. She notes that the plastic weighs 20 grams, the paper weighs 50 grams. Paper requires a lot more energy to produce and to recycle. She says the overall footprint of the single-use plastic bag is so tiny. You'd have to reuse each paper bag four times for it to be as environmentally beneficial as one plastic bag. Right. I said, spill in it on the second time I use it, if not the first, and it's ruined. Exactly. And then when she

compares the same numbers with cotton bags, it takes 173 uses of one cotton bag to equal one plastic bag. That's about three years of weekly shopping using this same bag over and over. Yeah, man, it's tough because I guess if you back out of that, you're like, okay, fine, that's a lot of plastic bags. But then also, that's provided you never lose your cotton bag or that it doesn't get a hole in it or gets too gross. And I think a lot of people think that because the bags are plastic, they can be recycled. I've been, I could swear that when I was a kid, my mom saved them and we recycled them. Maybe we just reused them. So tell us a little bit about why we can't recycle those. I mean, it seems like you should be able to recycle anything that's plastic, but I guess you

really can't. Yeah, you should be able to. And technically you probably could, but the problem is we don't because those super thin bags, they get caught up in the sorting machines, they clog up the line. And because they're so thin, they get very easily contaminated. So they absorb liquids and things like that that contaminate the recycling. And then when they're going along the recycling belts, they drag contaminants in, you know, that are non-recyclable and things like that. They're just a pain in the ass. They're just not worth recycling. And it takes more carbon emissions dealing with the processing of the bags than it would be to just make new ones. So it's not environmentally sound, nor is it cost effective. So if you are collecting all of your recyclables and then putting them into a plastic grocery bag and then tossing it into the bin. Every bit of that's being rejected and it's being sent to the landfill. It's not even making it to the recycle. Yeah, I think I mentioned this to a friend before, on the show before. It's called Wish Cycling when you just put something in the recycling bin and it's like,

this is for sure recyclable. It's a twisty tie. It's like, nah, it's like metal and thin plastic. It's just going to be, the thin plastic is getting in the way the metal they're going to throw it away. And you're like, I feel better about it because it didn't go in my trash can. And I feel like, that is like how he lived my life. unfortunately. Yep, you're on the right track. The recycling plant doesn't have the labor power to

open each bag, sort them all, clean the plastic, decontaminate, and constantly unclogged the machines, which is totally understandable. Yeah, and that's why the whole bag gets rejected regardless of the content. So a lot of people will get like a big trash bag, the same trash bag that's same trash in it, load all their recyclables in it and then toss it into the recycle bin thinking someone's going to open that up and empty all the recyclables out. They don't. The whole thing gets thrown away. That's not good. But, hey, Hey, good lesson. Don't put your recyclables in a plastic bag

thinking they're just going to go into the recycling machine. They're just going to throw it out as trash. So put the recyclable stuff in there and quit throwing your stupid plastic bags in there. Okay, so municipalities, I think like mine, who are banning plastic bags or you have to pay like 10 cents to get one if you forget you.

Because they're not recyclable. That's the justification here. If he's misguided policies or is there any wisdom to that at all? Absolutely. They're missing the larger point and they're not taking into account the overall footprint of each item.

I mean, at least until we find something that's more eco-friendly to produce and recycle, it doesn't make sense to start banning plastics at all. Professor Rager, she ends her talk with saying that if we outright banned plastics, CO2 emissions would explode because the things we use to replace plastics have such harsh impacts on the environment, from production to transport, to cleaning with chemicals, and even the water use to clean and reuse the stuff that is recyclable. So it's better to stick with plastics for now until we have something better as long as we properly recycle it, and right now we're not. So, all right, moving on from plastic or glass jars, we're talking major metal recycling as well, right? People should be thinking

about metal as a recyclable item. That was something that was recyclable when I was a child. Yeah, absolutely. And according to zmeascience.com, recycling metal saves energy, reduces emissions, and it creates jobs. Okay. Here's some numbers for you. Using recycled metal, known as scrap model instead of new metal reduces mining waste by 97% and it saves more than 90% on energy depending on the material and recycling metals create six times more jobs than sending the metals to a landfill. Okay. So getting companies to do these things on a large scale, that's where we're, it sounds like that's where we're going to get the most bang for our buck. Yeah, exactly. And you know I love to throw corporations under the bus any chance I do. Comey Dave Smalley. Yeah, but it seems for the most part

these large companies tend to do a pretty good job of recycling, at least compared to the average consumer. Research shows that over 80% of litter is intentional by individuals, like consumers like me and you, that are just not recycling, don't care, they drop trash on purpose because it's not that big of a deal. Like, oh, me picking up my one little red solo cup is going to save the planet. Yeah, I mean, literally, yes, the idea that other people aren't doing it. So screw it. That's super, no, that's absurd. I don't want to be friends of those people.

No, same. The same applies to paper recycling. People think that they individually can't make that big of a difference. Think for a moment about how many reams of paper you've bought or all the wasted pages you've thrown away or notebooks where you didn't write on the back of each page or extra packets or flyers you printed for just in case for presentations or whatever that you threw away. And then consider that one ream of paper is 6% of a tree. Yeah, it reminds me of please consider the environment before printing this email. Right. Yeah, and we used to make fun of it. They'd be like, oh, we're saving trees. And we would laugh and joke as though it's not that big of a deal. I can guarantee you, you alone, have taken out multiple trees just from printing things. I mean, it's... For sure. It's incredible. Oops, printed my map quest direction's wrong. Let me just reprint this. Yep. Double-sided? Nah, paper's cheap. So just count the reams of paper in any office and like every 17 reams is a tree. Is that how the math works out? Pretty much.

Zembe science reports that it's just a single ton of recital. paper saves 7,000 gallons of water. We have to keep thinking about that. Think about the electricity, think about the water, right? It's not just recycling that product. It's what goes into it. So recycling that paper not only takes care of the paper piece, but it also saves on other water production and other energy resources, like energy, for example. It saves about 4,000 kilowatts of energy for every one ton of paper. Okay. That's enough electricity to power your home for six months. Oh, wow, that puts it into perspective. Yeah, like 4,000. Is that a lot? I don't know. Yeah, wow, six months of electricity.

Right. And paper takes up a lot of room in landfills. It stops things from sinking into the dirt and all kinds of things. So the more that's recycled, the better the landfills operate. So overall, the efforts of recycling right now, what we're doing results in about 80 to 95 million tons of material being diverted away from landfills and incentives every year. Thank you so much for listening to and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers is what keeps the lights on around here. All the discount codes and URLs are all in one place.

Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. You can also search for sponsors using the search box on the website. Please consider supporting those who support us. Now, back to Skeptical Sunday. So, okay, this is clearly vital. We empty those bottles of Crystal Geyser, we drain that handle of gray goose, finish the old lucky charms,

and then we put him in a bag, stick them in the dumpster out on the curb or whatever, and then when the garbage truck comes around, I'm like, I've done my part in reducing waste and helping the environment. So please tell me that that, I can actually feel good about myself and we can, you know, wrap this up. No, I refuse.

That's not what I do on this show. Look, look, I'll pull the curtain back here. The concept of recycling is a brilliant invention, right? In theory, look, it saves energy. We've gone through that. It creates jobs. It reduces waste. It allows average people like you and me to help combat a massive global issue.

But it's a bit like that brand new director at your job who has some amazing ideas but has no idea how things actually work. So over the years, this boom in recycling has led to a number of problems that are actually making the issue worse. And I mean, like, a lot worse. And one of the main problems is contamination, which in theory is when trash and recyclables get mixed together. And I think a lot of people just don't think about that. Oh, interesting. So people who recycle because they think it's the right thing to do end up mixing things that should not actually maybe be mixed, right? Like my motor oil is now in my pizza box. So it's not just oil that's liquid. And it's not just cardboard. It's like oily cardboard that can only be a pollutant forever. Exactly. So sometimes we mix things together. Like we're trying to recycle a pizza box that has melted cheese and dried pepperoni stuck inside. But other times, we just don't think about the mixing that's already happened. Like tomato sauce is still inside the jar when you toss it into the

recycle bin or like squeeze bottles of condiments like ketchup, mustard or barbecue sauce. They still have residual products inside. And all of that can disqualify those items from being recycled because they're just considered contaminated. Nobody wants to use those products. What? I thought they, I assumed that was kind of like part of the deal, like they expect that. So we're talking, do we have to wash out every squeeze bottle, every glass jar, every salad dressing container that actually, like, does it have to be clean for it to go in the recycle bin for me to, for my good deed to be accomplished successfully? Absolutely. Oh, man. This is what I was talking about when it comes to recycling correctly and where some people may get a little frustrated

with this episode. The way it works is these plastics are melted down. Okay, they're put into sheets and they're sold back to companies who want to make products from recycled material. But if the sheet is soaked in barbecue sauce and mustard, nobody wants to buy it. So washing the products is actually super important. Oh, man, like, uh, pardon me, do you have any grape upon? Actually, yes, and my perfectly good brand new plastic sheeting I bought, there's a couple ounces, right in the freaking middle. Right. Yeah, I mean, that's a, that's a few extra steps. but it seems like it's worth it in the long run to make this stuff actually recyclable. Otherwise you're just putting trash into the recycling path and they're like,

oh, great, now I can't use any of this because there's craft mayo in the middle of this whole thing that I was going to use. And it gets worse, actually. So even worse news is that, of course, this is skeptical Sundays. Of course it gets worse. Even if you do it properly, there's a good chance it's still not good enough. And this is where I don't want to discourage people from going through those steps, but I want to encourage more people to do it correctly so that they're not being part of the problem. So

contamination has increased dramatically over the years, largely with the rise of what's called single stream recycling. It's the system we have in the U.S., which is basically where a neighborhood mixes all of your recycling in the collection truck instead of sorting them out into different commodities. So like, there are some neighborhoods who will be like put paper here, put plastic here, put glass here, right? And the issue is people like, oh, that's too complicated. I don't want to separate all my stuff. So they're like, okay, dummies, what if you just get one big bucket that says recycle? Will you do it then? And so everybody goes, oh, sure, I'll throw my stuff in there. But the problem is, if you link all of your stuff together as a neighborhood, you know, yeah, it may make

it faster and easier for people to do it, but it also means that even if you wash all your stuff off, something could get contaminated by other households in the area. Is this so, I'm getting so angry, because I'm going to be cleaning out all these jars, rinsing out all my stupid ranch bottles, and then some jackwad down the road tosses out a can of tomato juice and just ruins everything. And they're like, ah, we got to throw this away now. Meanwhile, I just spent like 20 minutes cleaning up all that crap. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm telling you. And my hope is, rather than discouraging people from saying, well, screw it, it's not going to be worth it.

I'm hoping that those jackwads become less jackwads and stop doing that. Yeah, yeah. When you throw out contaminated stuff, you're not just potentially ruin. your own recycling, you're potentially contaminating half of a truckload or potentially a whole truckload, depending on how much crap you're throwing in there. Oh my God. According to waste management, which is one of the largest trash and recycle companies in the world, about a quarter of all items placed in a recycling container actually are not recyclable

through curbside programs, but experts believe it's actually much higher than that. I believe that. After this show, I definitely believe. Now I'm like, is it 99% of things that I put in there? just get thrown away? Because I feel like I try to recycle all kinds of. Like I said before, wish cycling is like my main.

That's how we roll, unfortunately. All right. So it could, not only could it be my fault for accidentally mixing things, my neighbor could be screwing up my hard work, but on top of that, just there's more obstacles in the way of recycling.

Yeah. Things I think are totally fine to put in the bin. Yeah, Jordan, much like your first kiss, it's so much worse than you think, right? Contamination makes the cost of process recycling just skyrocket. Systems and people have to sort through the contamination. They clean what they can. They separate and discard items. It actually is even dangerous for some of these people to have to go

into these machines and get things that are contaminated. And those materials, also back to the fossil fuel thing, if you're hauling contaminated materials around, you're burning up fossil fuels for stuff that's not recyclable. So you're just wasting energy, you're wasting fossil fuels, you're wasting gas. And then it gets clogged up in these machines at the recycle facilities, and they pose hazards to the waste management workers. It would be like if your Excel spreadsheet had a reference error, but the reference error was a takeout container of spaghetti bolognese from whole foods. Like, it's disgusting, and it's terrible, and it's dangerous. And on top of that, the secondary issue is that contaminated recyclables

saturate tons of otherwise good material that it come in contact with. So even if it doesn't happen bouncing around your neighborhood truck or in your neighborhood dumpster, it could be perfectly fine and then get to the recycling plant and then be contaminated by contaminated products. Oh, man. So this is a problem like every single step of the way it's getting screwed up, potentially. This is precarious. Yeah. And while I said a few moments ago that companies tend to recycle better than consumers, that's technically true. But it's important to note that many corporations are pre-contaminating items during the production of plastic containers or bags. What do you mean? Well, when I say contamination, I really mean mixing materials in this sense, not necessarily

splashing it with food. Got it. Okay. After hearing that we were going to do recycling on a skeptical Sunday's episode, a listener named Jeff Stalfer reached out. And he was gracious enough to have a meeting with me and provide me some really detailed information about the production of bags and containers that so many of us recycle on a daily basis.

So Jeff works as what's called a flexigraphic plate maker. And it's like a dye used to print on plates. plastic containers. So while he's not exactly a recycling expert, he definitely knows how it all works and he knows how the packages are made. So one example he showed me is a package that says, I'm paper, I'm recyclable on it. It's stamped on the front. Okay. And that's technically true, because that part where it's stamped is paper. But there's a thin layer of polyethylene on the inside for protection against moisture. And it allows papers to be sealable so that they can close the bag for freshness, right? So while the outside says recyclable,

The product is either not at all recyclable or it's going to be way more difficult to recycle when it gets to the plant because the products are mixed. So in order to recycle this thing properly, you'd have to like peel this invisible inner lining away from the paper cover. Yeah, I'm definitely, I mean, no one is doing that. Right. Well, I asked him, that was exactly my response. I'm like, wait, so you're telling me, and he just started laughing. He was like that, he just said, that's not feasible.

Yeah. You know, but it could come down to percentages of paper to plastic ratios. they're getting more and more regulations where they're like, well, if it's at least 50-50, or if it's at least, then they're finding ways to do it. And hopefully with technological advances, this is going to be easier and easier to recycle. So it's not just us. It's also a failure on the part of our recycling process as a whole. Okay, so the outside of the paper, the inside lining is made from, is it polyethylene?

Right. Is that a problem because polyethylene is not recyclable? Or is it a problem because they are married together and you can't do the same thing to both things? That's a great question. So it is recyclable on its own, and that's the exact problem he's addressing. So when you bind together multiple polymers, even if they're all recyclable individually, you're failing the recycle test because they all have different melting points. So if you have one thin layer of paper stuck to one thin layer of polyethylene, even if you scrub it down, wash it off and shake the sillies out, where does it go during sorting? Does it go to the paper section? No, it's contaminated by plastic stuck to it. And if you send it to the plastic side, the paper probably, just disintegrates and in many cases doesn't even get recycled. So the key to recycling is the way it works at the plan is they melt it down back to what's known as a granulated state. And then they have them solidified into blocks or sheets, like I said, and then a company, you know, buys that stuff. So if it's a contaminated product or if it's supposed to be polymer, but it's got some

sort of paper in it, it's considered a contaminated mixed product and they can't be sold. And if it can't be sold, then it's getting rejected. So it's not being recycled. So even if it's, even if it's not rejected because of mustard, it might as well have mustard all over it, because it all goes to the same place. But the package has the I'm recyclable label on the front. Like, is that just marketing? Is that just feel better about buying this? It's technically true. When they print the paper, the paper is recyclable. So they stamp that on there. Even if they know good and well that in order for that paper to be used, they have to stick polymer on it or some sort of polyethylene. Look, when you have a monolaminate, which is scientifically known as a monopolyphylylene lambing,

it's recyclable. It basically just means you use one type of plastic. That's all it means. He showed me this rice bag, for example. It's made by Orisa. It's O-R-Y-Z-A, for anyone who wants to look it up. It's made with a polypropylene, and it's what he called the proper way to do it. It's a single type of plastic used for the entire bag. So the outside, the inside, it's all one type of plastic. So when that thing is done, the whole thing can be recycled. It's all at the same melting point, and it works. But other companies use different types of plastic. to either make things shiny or increase the consumer interest in the product, but they're sacrificing the recyclability of the package by doing that.

I feel like I've seen this, like on Cheetos where we know when you open the top, and they're like, oh, there's a thin layer where they print the Chester Cheetah Cheetah in the words. And I'm like, that is not the same thing as the inside foil. And it's like, now the foil's not recyclable and the plastic thing's not recyclable because it's attached to the foil. I feel like I see this a lot now that I know that it's a thing. So companies are making products more appealing to customers, but of course it's hurting the environment in the process. Right. And it's hurting the overall ways that we can recycle. So this could be seen as a failure of the overall process, but it's also the evil doing of corporations. You knew I would come back to this. You knew I would come back to me.

Naturally. Because they just know better. Another example Professor Ray Gart used in her talk was dark plastic bottles. So these deeply colored green spray bottles or blue shiny bottles like Adam. flea and tick spray or black shampoo bottles, some cleaning materials, red body wash. I'm looking to you, Old Spice. The automatic sorting machines don't recognize dark colored plastics as recyclable. So again, this is a technological issue that companies are working to resolve, but in the meantime, the manufacturers know this is an issue, but they sell more products from dark colored bottles, so they keep cranking them out. Is that because it's opaque? So the machine looks at it and says, I don't know if this is plastic. Yep. Right. Okay. Exactly. So the colored plastic is recyclable, but kind of sort of not really if the machines don't know any better because they can't tell what it is at all.

So it's recyclable if, right? It's one of those. It's like if the person on the line catches it by eye, or if a human sorter gets to it before the machine rejects it, or if the machine makes a mistake and accidentally lets it through, or that particular municipality has a super machine that can detect it. But in general, the majority of dark plastics still get rejected to the landfills. Okay, what about the cleaners or the chemicals that are white bottles with color plastic wraps? You know, you've seen those a lot where it's like shrink wrapped in a different kind of plastic around the bottle. Yeah, it's like a 409 or like a fantastic or some kind of cleaner like that. Yeah, those bottles are white even though you look at them and we go, that's not a white bottle. That's a really good question. So that's all over the place too because as long as both, and this is where it makes sense, but so many people aren't going to know what to do with this information.

As long as both the label and the bottle are made from the same type of plastic. plastic, it can be recycled together. But if it's a different type of plastic or a paper label, one may contaminate the other during the process and either be rejected altogether or only part of it will be recycled, meaning if you take one thicker plastic down to its melting point, it might completely disintegrate ruin or destroy the other part or vice versa. But again, it depends on the municipality and it depends on the equipment and the staff they have available. So you just never really know. Thanks so much for listening to and supporting the show. consider supporting those who support us, all the codes, all the deals on one page. You can find it on your

phone, Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. You can also search for any sponsor using the search box on the website as well. Again, Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. Now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday. So in a perfect world, they would label each item on whether or not they were the same plastics, and then we would know if we have to take that label off the bottle to recycle the bottle. Yeah, and that perfect world is known as Europe. So they have regulations on stamping P-P or P-E saying, which plastics are used in which products so that people know if it's one type of polymer or multiple plastics or whatever.

And while I was on this Skype call with Jeff Stouffer, he was holding up items in Germany from his own home, showing me these labels on his household items saying like, you know, here's different types of plastics used in this container. I'm checking stuff here in America going, mine just says recycle me. Like, this has a couple of arrows with a number in the middle, but we don't know what the hell this is, and nobody understands it.

And looking further into it, there are no federal regulations on labeling plastic products in the U.S. So, as is the case with most things in America, we're not as good as we think we are, and most of us have no idea what the hell we're doing or what's going on. And just a side note, I personally think we need to spend more time on things like this in schools, like how to recycle and how to save the oceans and human effects on. on climate chains and maybe, you know, less time on PhD level calculus and trigonometry, which 98% of students will never use again. But I can come on and ruin public education for our

listeners on another skeptical Sunday. Yeah, that's a light lift, I think, actually. Maybe a lot of material, but you won't have to dig too far to do that. So we should do this, right? I mean, at least in Germany and the EU, they're headed in the right direction from the sound of it. It's better there, but there's still corporate greed and there's still misinformation that leads the way even in Europe. And that aspect was really Jeff's passion. And kind of the whole reason behind him reaching out to us. So he showed me this bag that's called a biodegradable compostable bag in Germany, which makes it seem like it'll just disintegrate into the earth. But the stamp that certifies it has this logo. And when you look that logo up, it just means that the European

specification has been met. And that European specification just says that within 12 weeks, you should not be able to see 90% of the material. So you can't see it, but the microplastics are still there and are terrible for the environment. So even in their perfect world called Europe, where things are labeled, the labels don't always mean what you think they mean. And we just need to educate the public on it. He showed me a pasta box made completely from paper or cardboard, right? He showed me one from like a few weeks before where the entire thing was just the same material. It was like this blue ink cardboard, it. That's it. Completely recyclable with pasta inside. Pretty

straightforward. And then he showed me a new version of the same brand. The exact same thing, but it has this little plastic window inside so you can see the pasta because you don't know what pasta looks like. Is it elbows or are they spirals? I don't know what the words mean. Yeah, there's literally pictures on the front, but I want to make sure

that box is in lying to me. God forbid you get the wrong one. But that little plastic window, while it helps with marketing or people tend to go with stuff they can see in the package, that little plastic window contaminates the paper. Now that product is mixed materials and makes that box essentially non-recyclable.

He showed me a plastic yogurt cup, and I know everyone has these as well. It's a plastic yogurt cup, right? Well, it's a plastic cup, but the outside label is paper. And then you've got yogurt left on the inside. Oh, man, so you've got to remove the paper from the plastic and then you've got to wash out the cup.

Why can't the manufacturers reduce some steps and just use one layer or one type of plastic? Or just like not even multiple types of, just one layer, just print on the freaking container. Come on. Yeah. So that's Jeff's entire point. So food contamination and like shiny outside packaging are the main reasons most companies don't do it.

So let's say you have something like hard cereal, right? If you have hard cereal, it can scrape the inside of a certain type of container and it can wear out over time. Or it can destroy the food. The cereal will start to crumble and things like that. So it's easier to print on shiny things like polyester and then the polyethylene. lining on the inside is better for the food. So we have this sort of thing where, ideally, you want to put stuff in products that are good for the product, but if it doesn't look appealing to the average

consumer, it's not going to look good for numbers, right? So just like ERISA proved with their rice, you can do it right, but it just costs a little more. And he stressed that the Eureza rice was far more expensive, and then he held up a cheaper rice product that was made with this lower cost packaging. It had polyester on the outside, polyethylene on the inside, so effectively non-recyclable, even though it's all plastic. And this can even happen with water bottles, where the bottle is recyclable, but the lid isn't. Right, the lids are different color. It's a solid, opaque plastic. I was going to ask about this. I'm like, the bottle's clear, but the lid is not. I think the guy's going to sit around taking lids off of bottles at the recycle plant?

He shut me a carton for broth. This one blew my mind. So like broth, you know, you buy vegetable broth or chicken broth or soy milk in these cartons. They have a layer of... Of course you have soy milk. They have a layer of polyethylene and then ink printed paper and then another layer of polyethylene and then aluminum and then another layer of polyethylene. So depending on the municipality, a carton like that is probably, but it's going to get rejected in most cases. They might attempt to melt it down and only keep the aluminum or whatever is left. It's really up in the air. And then there's this last piece of this, which is this German symbol called Greenapunt or Greenpoint. It's just two arrows.

it looks kind of like a recycle symbol, but it means that the producer of the product has basically paid a fee to allow it to be collected in these yellow bags in Germany, which sounds good, but it doesn't really say anything about the actual recyclability of the product. So again, some things with that label are misleading. They're going to find a giant hole in the ground with just millions of little yellow bags in it. It's like, yeah, we did something with it. You'll never have to worry about these again. Right. Oh, man. So as long as the entire product or bag or container is made from the same material, then we should be okay. Yes, in theory, that's the idea. And in Sweden, they've actually placed a tax on items

that are not fully recyclable. So in Germany, that Eresa rice is more expensive than the cheaper rice with the multiple polymers, but in Sweden it would be opposite. So they would actually add a tax at the register on that non-recyclable product to make it more expensive so that you're either paying for it or, you know, people are encouraged to buy the single polymer products. Smart. Yeah, absolutely. What's happening to all the stuff that cannot be recycled? Straight to the landfill? So the EPA says that Americans generate more than 267 million tons of solid waste every year. In 2017, 94 million tons were recycled, but that's only 35% of total trash. That's actually way more than I thought, though. I will say that I was expecting a much lower

number percentage-wise. Yeah, fair enough. But Green Matters reports that most of the plastic recycling in the U.S. was previously outsourced to China. But the Atlantic reports that China no longer accepts most of our recycling. In fact, according to Yale Environment 360 new regulations in recent years, have pretty much stopped the process altogether. I heard this and I guess, look, I understand China just stopped accepting our garbage, which I kind of identify. I'm like, yeah, why would you continue to do that?

Do you need it? No, don't do it. I wouldn't want it either. We obviously don't want it either. Yeah, it's so sad that they won't take any of our politicians. Oh, yeah, no, garbage. They will. They will do that.

So they prohibited 24 types of waste from entering the country. Why? Because too much of it was contaminated. They were basically like, yeah, you can keep your half-full Mountain Dew bottles and bird shit-stained copies of the National Enquirer. And also, please learn what recycle means. So China's, I assume this big decision by somebody we outsourced all the recycling to had massive ripple effects. Like, could we replace that capacity? Well, we try. I mean, first, it caused the price of recyclables to plummet because of the demand dropped.

If everything's contaminated and nobody wants it, you know, what's the point? So the value did, you just completely tanked. And according to some professional recyclers, the price of recycled plastic started even going down so much that they weren't even recycling anymore for a while because no one wanted them, like the guy who dated three of your friends, who cares that he's single again, right? Like, what's the point? Yeah. Damaged goods. Yeah. So if China wouldn't take it, then what do we do with it now? Well, we started to flood any country who would take the waste, like Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia.

They have some of the highest rates of waste management in the world, and they often dump trash in illegal landfills. They burn it in open fires. They make it hard to trace where it came from. So we get to say, well, we didn't burn it, even if we're shipping it to someone else who's literally burning it and it goes into the atmosphere or whatever. So as a result, a lot of the waste management companies

were just scrambling to export or slash hide them. waste. And so they do this by hiding contaminated waste inside of larger consignments and then using creative accounting to make recycling numbers look more attractive. They're basically the Enron of recycling, but with a product that unfortunately we can smell. But things are getting better. The Malaysian government started to turn back container ships. They reciting public health concerns. Thailand and India have both announced bans on imported foreign waste, but a lot of the way somehow still ends up there. So it's not really stopping, which is why it's so vitally important that we recycle.

It's just, there's demand, right, for getting rid of stuff in a way that's politically acceptable. So, okay, we have to recycle. That is clear. What are some things we can take away from this? Like a real, real action items to make a difference. All right. So if you've been glossed over this entire time, here's the point to really sit back and listen.

So first thing and most importantly, it's something you can do for free that only takes a few seconds and you can do it right now without getting up or even pulling the car over. just stop believing you can't make a difference. This problem is so massive. You just doing one thing one time helps. You think about somebody you know who has gone through some sort of tragedy or has a medical problem or whatever. They had a crisis in their life and they create a go fund to me.

If you see somebody's go fund me and someone's donated $500 to it, you don't want to drop in $5 or $3 or $8. You feel stilly doing that. But when you're on the side that either needs the help or you're close to somebody who you see needs the help, You encourage everybody. Drop your three bucks in, drop your five bucks in. Everybody tells somebody it doesn't matter how small every little part helps.

Well, that is also true for your water bottle. That is also true for you rinsing out your mayo jar, right? So that's step one. Change your mindset. Step two is to remember that you have power. When you're buying products, look for white bottles, look for clear bottles, look for boring-looking products that have no label or white labels with minimal writing. Or buy aluminum every chance you get.

According to the EPA, recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy needed to make new aluminum cans. And according to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, recycling one ton of aluminum is equivalent to not releasing 13 tons of carbon dioxide into the air. Oh, wow. So sticking with aluminum and then being vigilant about recycling, it can go a long way. It's also hard to contaminate aluminum. It washes off quite easily. So when I want to buy beer now, what I'm going to start doing, I think it tastes better from glass bottles, right?

But I'm going to start buying the cans and then pouring them into chilled glasses at my home to reduce my glass bottle footprint. Try to buy cookies or snacks that are all in one bag as opposed to individually wrapped items. Try supporting products that are monopolymer laminate, which actually just means one type of plastic, or at least plastics that can be recycled together so it can be reused. You won't always know, but doing a little research beforehand can really help. products without the plastic windows in them. If you have two options between pastas and one has a solid box and one you can see, by the one you can't see, start telling these manufacturers that you want to go with single products made with single types of packaging. When asked for paper

or plastic at the grocery store, this may start a fight in the comments, but unless you have your own burlap or cotton reusable bag that you're committed to for more than three years, proudly say plastic and then reuse the hell out of those plastic bags, take them back with you as much as you can until you wear them out. Wash out your plastic bottles, wash out your shampoo, your body wash, your ketchup, mustard, salad dressing. Wash them out and then take the lids off and then put them both in a recycle bin without a bag.

And I say to leave the lids off because in many cases, like we said, the lids are a stronger plastic than the bottle and are likely going to have different melting temperatures. So just to be safe, separate them and then drop them in. If you're in an area that does not do single stream recycling and you get to separate different types of plastics, there's an easy cheat sheet on what the numbers mean in those little arrow triangles on plastic products. And we can link that in the show notes. But the vast majority of us who are in single stream areas, we just have to recycle the best we can. And lastly, I just want to leave you with this.

Don't do this for yourself or your neighbor. Do it for our kids. So we've all been on a walk by ourselves. We've heard of rumbling in the bush or we hear footsteps behind us. and fear is the first emotion. But we've also been on that same path with our three-year-old. Fear is not the first step anymore. When you hear claws walking behind you or a rumbling in the bush and you've got a small child with you, your first thought is, I wish you would come out here and think something's going to happen. I will destroy you if you come near this child.

So take that approach, right? Take that idea that we're doing it for protection. Have the confidence of care as opposed to the laziness of loneliness, because we are not in this alone. David, thank you very much. Always love these. This one went a little bit long. Thank you so much for sticking with us. Many of you have great suggestions for these skeptical Sunday episodes.

Please do keep those coming. We find that these are really popular. People love them. We love doing them. Topic suggestions for future episodes can always hit me at Jordan atjurbaner.com. Give me your thoughts on anything related to the show over there.

A link to the show notes for the episode can be found at jordanharbinger.com. Transcripts are in the show notes. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram where you can connect with me right on LinkedIn. You can find David Smalley at David C. Smalley on all social media platforms at David C.smalley.com or better yet, on his podcast, the David C. Smalley Show. Links to all that in the show notes as well.

Don't forget, I'm going to be interviewing author Ryan Holiday live in person in Los Angeles at the Venice West on June 13th. I'd love to see you there in person. Tickets are available at Jordan Harbinger.com slash tickets. that's Jordan Harbinger.com slash tickets again. June 13th, Los Angeles at the Venice West. That's me and Ryan Holiday live on stage. Hope to see you there.

This show is created in association with podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogart, Ian Baird, Miliocampo, Josh Ballard, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions, they're our own. And I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. So do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love.

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